As much as I approved of the idea of Matt dedicating an entry entirely to the French elections, I realise this has left me with the job today of covering 2 weeks’ worth of activity in one post. Luckily for our readers, we’ve not been up to much so I should be able to keep this from rambling too much.
I’ll kick off with the monthly curry night in Milhac, which was the Friday before last. We invited Sophie & Dom, the now-alone Philippe, and Jenny and Franck to ours. Jenny & Franck hadn’t met Sophie & Dom before but everyone seemed to enjoy each other’s company, as well as the curry. Franck’s family owns a chateau in Bordeaux and Jenny always buys wine from her caviste (wine merchant) so we enjoyed some rather tasty reds too. This was our first soirée with Philippe but sans Francoise and my first words to Matt at the end of it were “I miss Francoise”. Everyone left us around 12.30 or so but Philippe with a head of vodka steam built up is a force to be reckoned with. The worst part is that after a certain point, all he will talk about is war and his take on politics – and he’s quite happy to preach to a silent audience if we don’t/won’t respond. Normally when he reaches this stage, Francoise will tell him to shut up and take her home. This time we did our best to eject him ourselves, eventually succeeding around 2am.
I believe that was the only weekend activity, so in the spirit of brevity I shall skip forward again. I haven’t mentioned so far on the blog that since the beginning of March, I’ve been having ear issues. I’ve not really been in pain but I’ve had intermittent trouble hearing out of one or both of my ears. I finally caved in a couple weeks ago and went to see the doc. He said I had an inflammation and gave me a nasal spray, ear drops, some tablets, and a soluble powder. Unfortunately for me, 5 days later I’d taken everything and my symptoms were worse. Long time readers may remember me having wisdom teeth issues whereby I would sometimes get laid low with fever, toothache and ear problems. It hasn’t happened to me in years, but I began to suspect my ear infection was not all it seemed to be. I went back to the docs last week to be given repeat prescriptions of everything he gave me the last time, which didn’t sit too well so I insisted on some antibiotics and am pleased to say that I finally feel normal again, so the true culprit has now been dealt with.
On Wednesday last week, Nadine and Jean-Claude invited us to theirs for an apéro-dinatoire (drinks and plentiful snacks) as JC needed help fitting some wooden barn doors he’d made. That chore out of the way, we spent a lovely couple of hours on their veranda under their gorgeous wysteria. Like Francoise, they plan to leave the area too but luckily for us, it won’t be for at least 3 years yet so we’ve still time to enjoy their company.
Fast forward again, this time to the weekend just gone and to Friday night when we were lucky enough to enjoy an evening with the increasingly elusive Lee and Richard. We last saw Lee at the beginning of the year but for Richard, the last time was about 8 months ago. The boys made contact at the beginning of the week and, as we’d had and were still having a long spell of gorgeous weather, we arranged a BBQ. Unluckily, the weather turned from Friday and days of 22 degrees and blue skies have since given way to 15 and cloud. In protest we barbecued all the same, but opted to eat indoors.
They’re both well. Richard continues to be extremely busy doing DIY work for expats and also back in the UK, and Lee has taken up a job at a nearby estate agency. He can choose his hours so it has great flexibility, but the work is paid entirely on a commission basis so he’ll need to get a sale or 2 to make it worthwhile. Our Lee and Richard soirées are typically long and boozy and this one was too – we hit they hay around 5am – but maybe we didn’t go at quite our usual pace as none of us was in a state the next day, just a bit tired. Matt made us all a fry-up and then the boys returned to Villebois. Needless to say, we took it easy for the rest of the day.
On Sunday, to continue in the theme of overdue catching up, we were invited down to Bryan and Carol’s for apéritifs. It’s been weeks since we’ve seen them, what with us having visitors and one or the other of them being over in the UK so it was lovely to finally meet up again. They too are both very well and have been working hard on their garden. They recently had a chimney fire which caused a panic, but luckily it was dealt with without incident. (Note to selves: get chimney pipe checked and cleaned!). We’re trying to arrange our “fete des voisins” that we’ve talked about for ages: getting B&C, Lucien & Mauricette and Daniel and Odile all over for a meal. Unfortunately, we’re being repeatedly scuppered by conflicting diary clashes so it remains on the backburner for now.
Ok, on to the garden. Just over a week ago, Matt planed 15 “special” seeds in little pots. So far, we have 11 confirmed sprouts which is a great result. They’ll spend the next few weeks in their pots before being transferred to the veggie plot. Speaking of, Matt’s just got back in from giving the latter a final tilling/fertilise and then planting our sweetcorn seeds. For me, my big garden activity has been the annual hedge trimming – my gardening bête noire. It would have gone much more smoothly without suffering an ear infection in the middle of it, but I am extremely pleased to say that as of today, it’s now all finished for the year.
Right, I think I shall leave it there. A bientot, tout le monde.